From the "outside looking in" I can see this entire "adventure" as being a comedy of errors & I hope you'll also be able to see it in the light soon too. As you said, all was well that ended well & you ended up enjoying a beautiful outing with your husband, son, & doggie-kids; not exactly a bad way to spend a beautiful day. And you helped a charity to boot, bless your hearts!

I, too, would not have begun my trip to NYC without maps (but then I'm a map-freak anyway & have a ton of them in my car AND in my home), & I can't imagine "the plan" was to try & closely follow ANYone through NYC of all places, with all the signal-controlled intersections & all the other drivers who seem to delight in cramming their way into every teeny allowable space as the traffic "flows" along.

Okay, from my perspective, when the other party was leaving in their golf cart, did you happen to say light-heartedly, "pleeeeeease, don't you dare take off without us or we'll never find our way out of the city."? When you got to the wrong park exit did you think to call them to let them know of the mix-up & your delay, & again plead with them to wait for you?

If I remember correctly (a big "if" at my age!), the other party tried calling you twice but once you were unable to access your cell phone & the next time to were too miffed to respond to them. I'm sure that confused them hugely, especially if other golf-carts had been arriving without you all along! When your sister-in-law sent you a text message & asked "R U Ok?", that was texting shorthand for, well, "are you okay?", at which point it seems to me you should have responded with your concerns about getting out of the city without their help. You could have asked them to pull over to wait for you to catch up with them (letting you know of their location), or you could have stayed in constant contact with them for directions for the duration of your trip out of town. I'm sure some assistance would have been offered had you responded to their attempts to reach you.

My concern is that the 2 sisters-in-law will strain the relationship between the brothers which will in turn involve their parents & before you know it the whole family is put in the miserable position of "taking sides". Family gatherings become awkward & uncomfortable for all involved & that's a terrible way to live.

Okay, here's the kicker (& you'll probably feel like kicking me when you read it!), I think you should call your sister-in-law & ask her to please meet you for a cup of coffee somewhere so the 2 of you can clear the air & get everyone back on track. You can honestly say something along the lines of you're sorry but you panicked when you discovered "we" had been left to fend for "ourselves", & you were really disappointed that they had done that. How she responds, either with her own apology or by blowing you off, will be 100% on her but you will be the far bigger person for reaching out to her & all your in-laws (AND, most importantly, your hubby!), won't be able to help but notice you've chosen to be the peace maker.

I suspect your sister-in-law will at some point become known as the trouble maker & whiner within the family while you'll be able to stand proud.

As for your aversion to "people" in general - hey! - I'm with you totally ("The better I know people, the more I love my dog!"). I grew up in the shadow of a very "flamboyant" older sister & instead of attempting to compete with her I chose to retreat at a VERY early age. I'm the one at social gatherings who would rather be hiding behind the drapes, or I always thought the ability to become invisible would be cool too, but at family gatherings, including hubby's family gatherings, I persevere & can be quite pleasant (gack!). When it's my family, I do it for their sake & when it's my in-laws I don't do it for their sakes - or for my sake - but for my hubby's sake to keep the peace & make him proud of me. So my advice to you is go forth & make your hubby proud -

Dogs have taught me all I need to know about life, love, loyalty, & laughter; & (heartbreakingly), loss & "letting go" of a loved one as well. God bless ‘em…

Okay, from my perspective, when the other party was leaving in their golf cart, did you happen to say light-heartedly, "pleeeeeease, don't you dare take off without us or we'll never find our way out of the city."? When you got to the wrong park exit did you think to call them to let them know of the mix-up & your delay, & again plead with them to wait for you?

Right before they got into their cart my SIL said they would wait for us where the carts dropped everyone off. When we realized we had been taken to the wrong side of the park, yes I absolutely did call her to let her know we would be delayed a bit and why. She did not answer her phone so I left a message.

You can honestly say something along the lines of you're sorry but you panicked when you discovered "we" had been left to fend for "ourselves", & you were really disappointed that they had done that.

Thats what I did indeed do. I described every footstep we took after they had left on the golfcart and expressed that we were upset that they left.

How she responds, either with her own apology or by blowing you off, will be 100% on her but you will be the far bigger person for reaching out to her & all your in-laws (AND, most importantly, your hubby!), won't be able to help but notice you've chosen to be the peace maker.

She initially responded on the attack. At that point I knew how things were going to proceed so I just responded that I suggest we just agree to disagree and move on. Then she came back and attacked me AGAIN and told me I needed to apologize to her. In my response to that I let her know I would not be apologizing to them for their bad manners. Then she came back at me again!! When I saw in my email I had another message from her I didn't even read it. I simply texted her and told her that I wasn't going to read her last message, That things had gone to far and I'm throwing in the towel, I had already regretted saying anything in the first place, she can continue to feel how she feels but I can't continue this anymore and I wished her well. That was when I received the scathing message about how I have been banned from future gatherings.

I was told by a friend that maybe she had apologized in her last message, that I hadn't read, and was now even more upset that I told her I wasn't going to read it. So when I got home that day I read it. It had gone from bad to worse and it was a good thing I hadn't read it because if I had, she would have popped when she read what I would have responded with but didn't.

So then, not even 48 hours after I was told to never communicate with them again, I get an email from my BIL, regurgitating everything that had been said thus far by my SIL and more. I have not responded, nor do I intend to. When I said I was done with all of this I meant it. It doesn't seem as though they are willing to let it go.

They have tried, more accurately my SIL has tried, to contact my husband several times since I got the email from my BIL. My husband has refused so far to call them back. He has read everything she and I have written back and forth, he knows I have tried to diffuse it on more than 1 occasion, and he cannot believe the things she has said or why she has taken it so far out of bounds. Friday evening ( it was that morning I received the email from my BIL ), and again yesterday I mentioned to him that he really should call them and speak with them. I keep telling him that his silence is sending them a message that he may not be meaning to send. His mother also told him the same thing.

As far as him being proud of me? Who knows. He has read what was written, he knows me and what I am, so I guess if he is going to be proud of me, it's because I didn't curse when being cursed at, call anyone names when I was being called names, and tried to put out the fire before, and even after, any curses were said and names were called. I think I have tried to be the bigger person through all of this,maybe I haven't been. I don't know but I can only take so much.

Scout1: I'm so sorry; you have indeed taken the high road all along while that obnoxious, self-absorbed, egocentric broad has tried desperately to drag you down to her level. Your "agree to disagree" should have ended it right then & there.

Her husband certainly had no business contacting you directly either & I can only suspect she ragged on him incessantly until he did so just to shut her up! And she surely has no business trying to contact your husband either! This is between the brothers to sort out now. I'm relieved to know you're still on good terms with "mom-in-law", though, & I suspect mightily that the rest of your husband's family is well aware exactly where the problems lie. I'm sure your husband is very proud of you - & I'm also very sure he thanks his lucky stars the trouble maker in the family is his brother's cross to bear & not his!

As an aside, I also meant to comment on your recent "extended house guest" (i. e., "free-loader")! Again it appears you went above & beyond your call of duty in trying to accommodate the ungrateful & incredibly selfish "friend" & "with friends like that...", right?

Dogs have taught me all I need to know about life, love, loyalty, & laughter; & (heartbreakingly), loss & "letting go" of a loved one as well. God bless ‘em…

Her husband certainly had no business contacting you directly either & I can only suspect she ragged on him incessantly until he did so just to shut her up! And she surely has no business trying to contact your husband either!

I am not entirely sure it was him that did contact me. I received that email during the day when he is normally at work. I know she is home Friday mornings as she is off from school on Fridays. And I received it 10 minutes before my husband received an email, from her, asking him to please call her because she and my husband's brother( her husband ) would like to speak to him. I also received it AFTER the scathing text message stating that "my husband told me to block you and I did". So if he felt so strongly that I was indeed the one at fault for all of this, strongly enough to tell her to BLOCK me from being able to contact them, why would he fuel it by sending me an email less than 48 hrs later?

I am not going to say it was her, for all I know he could have had the day off from work and decided to send me that email. I really don't know so I am not going to make any assumptions.

I do not believe she should be contacting my husband either. That should be handled by my husbands brother. All I know is I am not saying any more on the subject to him. He wants me to print out everything that has been written between us so when he finally does speak to them he cannot be bamboozled into thinking more was said, or things got "twisted" around by ME. The final act is yet to be played out and I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about the outcome. I would never in a million years want him to have a strained or severed relationship with any of his family over me. I would like actually for him to make peace with them, even if I will still remain an outcast. It doesn't matter to me if I am still "banished" because I know in my heart I did nothing wrong and my husband knows it also. And really that is good enough for me.

I was reading your post and would like to throw in my two cents if it's OK...Wow! When it's family it really hurts no matter which side your from. :( If the oppertunity comes to bridge the gap between you- I would go through that door. Hopefully something will come up soon that will give you the ability to visit and be a family again, without strife. Just be aware, though, that a similar thing may happen again. Some people, (I like to think that they are 'a card shy', or 'a potatoe less' or 'an old pot head' are so socially unaware that even if you tell them the problem they won't understand. These are the people that believe in telling "the whole truth" and everything on their mind even though it may hurt the peraon it's being told to. :( There is no answer because these people have that little social mechanisim broken in their brains. It's nothing that you did or said, so not to take it personally. The hardest part is moving on and trying not to hold a grudge. Hope this helps. I'm sorry about your frusteration. Don't loose heart in humanity. Been there, done that.(Got left by a best friend at Disney world. We were just two seconds behind her and her kids...she couldn't wait for another boat to pick us up together. I saw this as she happily waived "bye-bye" from the bridge. She still pulls this kind of thing and I'm still her friend., but I understand how she operates. Hope your world turns brighter...:)

Things like this happen to me all the time also. I am too good to friends and They take advantage of me

Honestly I do not trust no body including my family

My best friend is God Almighty . Only God can help when we are in trouble Have relationship with God I will trust my Dog than friends

" NEWS FLASH!!! People in general are selfish, inconsiderate, inconsistent, unreliable, impatient a holes. what else is new?

One thing I have learned long ago is to never fully count on or trust anyone. That includes friends and family. And to always have a contingency plan when you must rely on someone else. If you keep your expectations low and take in to account the certainty that people can and will inevitably let you down, then you don't get disappointed when they do.

Btw, all this mess could have been avoided if at least one of you thought about going on mapquest and the likes ahead of time. personally, I never leave home with out a GPS. got one in the car and one built in to my phone.

As the saying goes, we choose are friends, not our family and most of our family, we would not choose. I feel for you Scout, as I have been there. I have swallowed pride and sacrificed myself for relationships, and I have chosen to be myself and not have relationships with some family members.

What it boils down to is that if you look in the mirror and like what you see each day, that is good enough. It sounds like your SIL feels bad, got called on the mat for her behavior and instead of apologizing, she reacts in a defensive attitude. Just be glad that you are not your BIL and have to live with that on a daily basis.